The sea at this hour is smooth as oil, except where ruffled by
fish-shoals, and shows comparatively free, today at least, from the long
Atlantic roll which lashes the flat coast east of Apollonia. Its selvage
is fretted by green points, golden sands, and a red cove not unlike the
crater-port of Clarence, Fernando Po. The surface is broken by two islets,
apparently the terminal knobs of many reefs which project westward from
the land. To the north rises Asiniba ('Son of Asini'), a pyramid of rock
below and tree-growth above. Fronting the landing-place is Bobowusúa,
[Footnote: The Hyd. Chart calls them Suaba and Bobowassi; it might be a
trifle more curious in the matter of significant words.] or Fetish Island,
a double feature which we shall presently inspect. The foreshore is barred
and dotted perpendicularly by black reefs and scattered _diabolitos_, or
detached hard-heads, which break the surges. At spring-tides, when rise
and fall reach at least ten feet, and fourteen in the equinoctial ebb and
flow, it appears a gridiron of grim black stone. [Footnote: Not as the
Hyd. Chart says--'rise and fall at springs six or seven feet.']

The settlement, backed by its grand 'bush' and faced by the sea, consists
of a castle and a subject town; it wears, in fact, a baronial and
old-world look. Fort Santo Antonio, a tall white house upon a bastioned
terrace, crowns proudly enough a knob of black rock and low green growth.
On both sides of it, north and south, stretches the town; from this
distance it appears a straggle of brown thatched huts and hovels,
enlivened here and there by some whitewashed establishments, mining or 'in
the mercanteel.' The soil is ruddy and rusty, and we have the usual
African tricolor.

The agents of the several Aximite houses came on board. We drained the
normal stirrup-cup and embarked in the usual heavy surf-boat, manned by a